Joeb Moore & Partners

Bridge House In Kent

Bridge House In Kent
© Michael Biondo

BRIDGE HOUSE IN KENT

Joeb Moore + Partners Architects

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT
Donald Walsh

GENERAL CONTRACTOR
Corporate Construction, Inc.

STRUCTURAL ENGINEER
Ed Stanley and Associates

MECHANICAL ENGINEER
ENCON Inc.

PHOTOGRAPHS
Michael Biondo

AREA
5000.0 m2

YEAR
2010

LOCATION
Kent, United States

CATEGORY
Houses

Text description provided by architect.

The Bridge House is located in Kent, Connecticut along a 300’ ridge that parallels the Housatonic River not far from Kent Falls State Park.

Bridge House In Kent
© Michael Biondo
Bridge House In Kent
© Michael Biondo

The state park boasts a beautiful series of cascading falls and a historic covered bridge. Joeb Moore + Partners Architects took these impressions and observations of the surrounding environment as inspiration and the jumping off point for the conceptual design of the Bridge House.

Translating and mirroring the slow geological flow of bedrock and the more active flows and streams of water above, the architects invented a broad conceptual site-building diagram and strategy where the building becomes a kind of vessel and bridge that appears to spring out of the natural landscape and sloping topography.

Bridge House In Kent
© Michael Biondo
Bridge House In Kent
© Michael Biondo

As the house takes on form and volume it turns and bridges across the very landscape that rolling directly under it and down the hillside the house itself is anchored into.

The house proper (the wood structure) sits above and is buttressed into the hillside on either side of the living/dining “bridge” by two opposing concrete foundation/buttress/chimney structures with dual “hearths”.

Bridge House In Kent
© Michael Biondo
Bridge House In Kent
© Michael Biondo

The introductory sectional perspective demonstrates this key site and building strategy most vividly and precisely. 

The house form and its key “inter-locking” interior space, the dual living-dining area (indoor + outdoor / above + below see conceptual assembly model/diagram), are now open on both sides and turned parallel to the open meadow, the valley floor, and the Housatonic river below.

Bridge House In Kent
© Michael Biondo
Bridge House In Kent
© Michael Biondo

The living/dining area and the vertical stair-light wells are a wonderful example of a kind of camera lucida or viewing chamber that makes continuous adjustments of internal relations (functions, activities, rituals) with external conditions (natural site, views, changing weather, light, and air). 

It is at these moments, In these chambers the house creates a life-world suspended between land and air. The structural bridge concept allows the landscape to run directly through and under the building.

Bridge House In Kent
© Michael Biondo
Bridge House In Kent
© Michael Biondo

This feeling of suspension, produces just enough of a “loose fit” and play between nature and convention for unexpected alliances to emerge. The house oscillates between a treehouse, a campground and a cave all in one.


Bridge House In Kent
© Michael Biondo


Bridge House In Kent
© Michael Biondo
Bridge House In Kent
© Michael Biondo
Bridge House In Kent
© Michael Biondo
Bridge House In Kent
© Michael Biondo
Bridge House In Kent
© Michael Biondo
Bridge House In Kent
© Michael Biondo


Bridge House In Kent
© Michael Biondo
Bridge House In Kent
© Michael Biondo


Bridge House In Kent
Model
Bridge House In Kent
Model


Bridge House In Kent
Rendering

Bridge House In Kent
Rendering


Bridge House In Kent
First Floor Plan
Bridge House In Kent
Second Floor Plan


Bridge House In Kent
Site Plan
Bridge House In Kent
Elevations

Joeb Moore & Partners
T +1 203 7695828 F +1 203 7695827
Joeb Moore & Partners
20 Bruce Park Ave, Greenwich, CT 06830, United States